Longrider

As I commented back before the election, there is to be a great repeal act – and jolly good, too. Goodbye to the repressive surveillance database state and the spying on ordinary citizens by a suspicious mistrusting political elite.

On the other hand…

For, in their latest Coalition Programme for Government [PDF], the ConDems have decided that one of their very first acts will be yet more controls on alcohol.

Oh, for crying out loud… They just don’t get it, do they? Binge drinking is not new. Problem drinkers are not a recent manifestation. Problem drinkers will drink to excess no matter what is done with pricing – they will make savings elsewhere and put their money into the booze, much as my grandfather did in the thirties. Indeed, my grandmother had to meet him coming home from work on payday to get the housekeeping before it was spent in the pub. Binge drinking, new? Pull the other one.

And, as Timmy points out there are other consequences of such ill-conceived legislation.

I’m absolutely certain that they’ve not thought this through.

So, booze wholesaler goes bust (or offie, pub, supermarket, village shop, whatever).

The liquidator comes in and has to shift the stock swiftly in order to get cash back for creditors before rents and storage costs eat any further into the pittance they’re going to get.

How do you shift stock quickly? You discount it of course.

This is now illegal.

Think that’s too extreme?

Yes, frankly, I do. It is idiotic. I have been inclined to sit back and see how this new coalition pans out before wading in with too much criticism, not least because much of what they have been saying is right – particularly on civil liberties – but this plan is straight out of the New Labour book of fuckwittery.

It is interesting to note Tesco offering up its support, like those grouse who stretch their wings with the coming of the warmth of August on the gentle moors. Naturally, they see profit for themselves so that’s all okay then.

Tesco says polling for the company found excessive drinking and the anti-social behaviour it causes is one of the public’s most serious concerns.

Well, if those people polled really thought that, they won’t buy low priced alcohol, will they? And they would willingly buy higher priced alcohol from Tesco on the grounds that they were doing the decent thing, wouldn’t they?

Hypocrisy has a foul stench about it, as does ignorance and control freakery.

You may recall me mentioning that we were going to adopt a feral queen following the death of Ptolemy. Well, there was a complication; she was pregnant. We really could not take on more kittens. We hoped that she would have them somewhere and we could have her spayed at a later stage. That didn’t work out too well as she decided to have them in our house – quelle surprise. Unfortunately for her, the birth was extremely difficult as the first kitten had expired and was severely deformed. Consequently of the five kittens born only the last, a little silver grey tom, was born alive. Given that, we’ve dubbed him “Lucky” – and he is. Now two weeks old, he and mother are doing fine. We’ve had Minnie chipped and rabies jabbed ready for the journey to the UK. Unfortunately, Lucky simply cannot come with us as we have to wait for six months following a successful blood test and kittens cannot have the inoculation until they are six months old. We’ve spoken to the mayor and hopefully, Lucky will find a new home in the next few weeks.

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Update: A more recent image taken at two weeks.

I’ve always considered the term “socialist worker” to be an oxymoron. After all, these parasites have plenty of time to attend demonstrations and poke their noses into to other peoples’ disputes rather than actually, you know, work.

I recall the signaller striker of 1994. I was an active member of the RMT at the time and attended the pickets during the strikes. Despite the media coverage attempting to politicise the dispute, it was nothing to do with Railtrack’s privatisation, but was prompted by significant changes to our working conditions. In general, the deal Railtrack was offering was a good one, but there were some worries about job losses and a shift to longer hours working two signalling panels during the night hours instead of one. In retrospect, it was all a waste of effort and these days I take a different view of striking, but that’s another matter. There we were on the picket line – signallers in dispute with Railtrack – and along come the Socialist Workers to take part, offering “solidarity”. Frankly, the last thing we needed was the Socialist Workers’ solidarity. They were about as welcome as  a plague of boils.

I was reminded of this yesterday when the plague descended on the ACAS talks between BA and Unite. The images of this bunch of scum-bags was all too familiar. They have nothing to do with either protagonist in this dispute, but they felt it was perfectly fine to trespass on private property and disrupt the discussions, reducing the likelihood of a resolution before next week’s planned stoppages. Like some science fiction entity that feeds on negative energy, this cancer swoops like a flock of voracious vultures on unrelated disputes in order to disrupt and harass. Just look at the body language of these people and you will see what I mean. They are rent-a-mob scum. Clearly Tony Woodley didn’t feel that their solidarity was of any use to him and his cause.

Mr Woodley angrily remonstrated with the protesters telling them to “shut up”.

Mr Woodley was too polite, methinks…

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Update: The Quiet Man also comments.